Abdullah Ocalan, the jailed leader of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), is “ready to make a call” to back a new initiative by the Turkish government to end decades of conflict, Turkey’s pro-Kurd party said on Sunday.
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Two lawmakers from the DEM party made a rare visit to Ocalan on Saturday on his prison island, the first by the party in almost a decade, amid signs of easing tensions between the Turkish government and the PKK.
On Friday, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government approved DEM’s request to visit the founder of the PKK, which is designated a terror group by Turkey and its Western allies.
Ocalan has been serving a life sentence on the island of Imrali south of Istanbul since 1999.
The government’s approval of the visit comes two months after the head of Turkey’s nationalist MHP party, Devlet Bahceli, extended Ocalan a shock olive branch, inviting him to parliament to renounce terror and disband his group, a move backed by Erdogan.
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“I have the competence and determination to make a positive contribution to the new paradigm started by Mr Bahceli and Mr Erdogan,” Ocalan said, according to a DEM statement on Sunday.